The day after suddenly announcing that he was ditching the presidency of the World Bank for a Wall Street private equity firm, Jim Yong Kim made an appearance before staff to muster an explanation.
In the packed atrium of the bank’s headquarters, just two blocks away from the White House, Mr Kim said he was leaving three years earlier than expected to take a lucrative job that sounds similar to his World Bank role — helping the private sector finance infrastructure projects in emerging markets. “This opportunity came, and, you know, it is very hard to predict when these things come to you in your life,” he said.
The 59-year-old former academic and health official then dashed off because he had “a lot of phone calls” to make, leaving other top officials to field remaining questions. Many in the audience — with whom Mr Kim had repeatedly clashed since taking the reins of the World Bank as Barack Obama’s appointee in 2012 — left unsatisfied. “The town hall didn’t clear up a thing,” one World Bank employee lamented.
Mr Kim’s abrupt, voluntary exit has not only triggered confusion and frustration for staff at the bank, but raised profound questions about the leadership and the future role of an institution that has been a centrepiece of the US-led international economic order .

After the first disorienting days of the week, World Bank insiders are at least comforted that Mr Kim was not pushed out but jumped ship for his own reasons. Some say that he had already started to check out a few months ago, leaving much of the day-to-day management to Kristalina Georgieva , the widely-admired former EU commissioner who is the World Bank chief executive and will take over as interim president.
“He disappeared from sight while he was looking for something else,” says one staffer.
However, Mr Kim did launch one major initiative in October, with the creation of a “human capital” ranking of countries to measure their spending on health and education.
Ultimately much will depend on what the Trump administration decides to do in picking its candidate for the job. Ms Shelton says there should be nothing to fear: “The Trump administration doesn’t reject multilateralism , it embraces multilateralism that works. It would like to see the bank work better.”

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